Looking forward to picking an eCommerce framework for selling your products? I have good news and bad news for you.

The good news is there are countless ecommerce frameworks available in the market. You can be assured that after some digging, you can find the one that best suits your business.

However, the bad news is that choosing the best eCommerce framework for online selling requires lots of effort. There are many simple yet critical factors you need to keep in mind.

So, how do you choose the right eCommerce framework for your business? Well, that’s why we have put together this guide. Let’s begin:

Why Choosing the Right eCommerce Framework Matters?

To succeed in the eCommerce space, you must understand this straightforward truth:

You can never compete online without an eCommerce framework.

You may think  that you can survive by simply listing your products on the web. But building and running an eCommerce business is a lot more than that. To build the best eCommerce business model in 2022, you need the same level of strategic thinking and planning as running a physical retail. You’ll even need to automate and streamline some tasks so that you can cut back on additional costs and effort.

An eCommerce framework can help you execute complex functions like CRM, inventory management, mobile commerce, web design, and warehouse fulfillment with ease. It can take a lot of load off your shoulders and help you focus on tasks that matter.

What are Some Common Factors You Should Keep in Mind While Choosing an eCommerce Framework?

1. Vendor Expertise & Experience

Your eCommerce vendor’s expertise and industry experience are the first thing you must check while choosing the eCommerce framework. If they don’t have the necessary skill set to address your business needs or the required experience of your industry, they can never help you achieve the desired results.

Hence, take some time to research about them. Read their case studies, contact their previous customers, and go through testimonials about them so that you know they can handle the complexities of your requirements.

2. Support

Whenever things go south and new issues will arise, it’s the customer support from your eCommerce platform vendor that will come in handy. Hence, look for a vendor that offers 24×7 support and can be reached out via email, chat, or even phone.

3. Scalability

As your business grows, your eCommerce platform will also grow. Now, having an eCommerce platform that doesn’t offer any scalability can drastically affect the growth of your business. Hence, scalability is a feature you must look for in your eCommerce platform.

4. Mobile-Friendliness

We’re living in a world where most of the eCommerce retail sales happen on mobile phones. Hence, it is essential to choose an eCommerce platform that’s mobile-friendly.

5. Security

This point hardly needs any explanation. You will actively take financial payments on eCommerce platforms and handle most of our business there. Hence, it’s essential to ensure it has all the security protocols in place.

6. SEO-Friendliness

An SEO-friendly eCommerce platform can help you rank high on search engine results. So, look for the following SEO-friendly features in your eCommerce platform:

  • Flexibility to use your domain name
  • Ability to add content to your eCommerce platform
  • Customers can leave ratings and reviews on your products

12 Must-have Features in an Ideal eCommerce Framework

Every eCommerce platform comes packed with its own set of unique features. But are all of them useful for your business? Maybe or maybe not – it’s hard to tell. Although, there are some features that are universally desired for every eCommerce business. Here are 12 such must-have features in an ideal eCommerce platform:

  • A Robust catalog that’s intuitive, easy to update, and meets the requirements of your industry. Product bundles and cross-linking between product pages are other features your eCommerce framework must have.
  • Flexible pricing to easily support customers from different geographic regions. Support for multiple currencies and ability to automatically charge different fees for different locations are some desired features to look for.
  • Advanced personalization options to offer an immersive experience to customers. Look for an eCommerce platform with a recommendation engine that sends personalized product suggestions to customers based on their previous purchase.
  • Flexible shipping to ensure you can deliver to your customers anywhere, anytime.
  • Analytics and reports to help you make informed business decisions for your eCommerce business.
  • Google merchant integration. It will let you upload and maintain product information so that it can be displayed in Google shopping results. This way, you can bring more traffic to your product listing page.
  • Social media integration to help you sync your products to social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook messenger.
  • A third-party integration that allows customers to leave ratings and reviews. According to a study, positive reviews enhance trust for 72% of customers. So, it can be a useful addition.
  • Automatic tax and account calculation feature to take the worries of taxes off your shoulders.
  • Multiple payment options like PayPal, credit card, debit card, Net Banking, and UPIs to increase your conversions.
  • Single customer view to ensure you can swiftly track your customers and their communication across each channel.
  • Headless commerce feature to ensure you can deliver a seamless eCommerce experience across multiple touchpoints. Especially in the current scenario where people are active on multiple devices, going headless is a wise decision.

Bonus: Mistakes to Avoid at Any Cost While Choosing an eCommerce Framework for Your Business

Since you’re pouring your hard-earned money in an eCommerce framework, it’s important to be aware of some common yet critical mistakes. Here are four such common mistakes you should avoid:

  • Investing in an eCommerce platform built on a rigid monolith infrastructure is the biggest mistake. Not only does it lead to slow performance, but is also difficult to update, upgrade, and manage.
  • Choosing a platform that’s difficult to scale. It can harm the growth of your business and turn out to be a bottleneck when your business flourishes.
  • Investing in an eCommerce platform that has too many features. Not only do you get a poor value for your money, but you also end up paying for features you don’t need.
  • Putting your hard-earned money in an eCommerce framework without any business goal. This way you might choose the wrong eCommerce platform and end up wasting a lot of time and resources.